Make me a channel of your peace!

All Roads Lead to Rome!

Everyone knows we like to travel and have been many places, some near, some far. But personally I had never been to Italy, So the whole plan of our European Adventure was to end up in Italy. All the magical Eastern European midivil cities were preludes the the great and powerful Rome.

We traveled from Medjugore back to Croatia to the wonderful city of Split. You remember the Emperor Diocletian from the early fourth century? Well for his retirement he decided to build a Palace on the Dalmatian coast. No travel trailer for hime. The amazingly beautiful peninsular on the Adriatic was his home away from home. And the layout of his palace is now the old city of Split. SO worth a visit! Alas we missed Dubrovnik, but we have been told that Split was as cool if not cooler.
That evening we got on the Jardrolinja, a ship that was to bring us to Italy.

The night was beautiful, the moon was full, and the ship was jammed packed. Apparently everyone in Croatia wanted to go to Italy that night.Very fortunately, we had gotten a cabin so we didn't have to hang out with the masses who where setting up camp on every square inch on the public areas. Restaurants, hallways, stair landings, the dance floor,  the outside deck, - all were strewn with blankets, sleeping bags, blowup mattresses and whatever else the crafty travelers could come up with to make themselves comfy.
While we were thankful for the cabin, we did remark the we could picture Amelia and Erik enjoying the floating pajama party. But we are at the age that pizza, beer, a deck of cards and a DOOR was all we wanted!

We are used to taking ferries in Scandinavia, always marveling at the efficiency of getting hundreds of vehicles on and off these ships in a short time and in an orderly manner. Ahem, how do I politely say our first AM in Italy did not measure up to the Swedish experience? First we stood forever waiting to get down to the car deck. When we finally got to our deck, it was a bit chaotic. The cars were forced to turn around in the cramped space because...wait, I really don't even know why! Did the ship come in the wrong way? Were the doors broken? Whatever the reason, Svend very smartly insisted I go ashore with the walking passengers and wait outside while he dealt with getting the car out.  So my first view of Italy was sitting on a cement piling  on a dock in Ancona, waiting for out cute little Nissan Juke to appear from the Jardolinja. Which it finally di.

But, so what, here we are in Italy! Everything is written in Italian! There are signs that say Roma- and I knew that meant Rome!

And yet there is still one tale to tell about the amazing hilltop town of Assissi. While driving along the pleasant motorway that Saturday morning, we spied a sign that said Assisi 30 km. We had to make a detour to see the great cathedral of Saint Francis. To tell the truth Svend is not really aware of the top 10 saint list, but we Catholic know and love Saint Francis of Assisi!

I can assure anyone who has not been to Assissi, it is magnificent. After a longish 30 km up some beautiful backroads, it was a thrill to spy the walled town of Assisi. As per our usual "seat of your pants" style, we just drove as close as possible and found a parking area. It was right outside one of the gates and a steep, but not long walk to the famous church. I couldn't say which of the various levels of the Cathedral are more beautiful or interesting. Svend would probably choose the one of the three he actually visited and then beat it to the coffee shop across from the main entrance.

We agreed I would meet him there after I wandered around a bit longer and worse case scenario, meet back at the car. Can you catch the foretelling here of a disaster waiting to happen?


After a good wonder around the various floors of the cathedral and a sneaky picture of one of the statues (I swear I did not see one of the ten thousand notices about not taking pictures until after the fact) it was time to leave and find the Viking driver of my chariot (aka Villy's Nissan Juke.) Don't ask me how I did it, but somehow I walked out a different entrance and could nor find the coffee shop that was directly across from where we went in. But my thought was, OK it's a walled city - how lost can I get. The answer turns out to be INCREDIBLY LOST!. Did I mention it was noon, August, Italy and hot!!!
 It was at least an hour or more of trying to figure out where the car was parked. Was I supposed to have noted the name of the car park? Should I be held accountable that there are several places to park around this ancient walled city? Finally I found my way to the main square and the tourist info office where a blessed millennial conjured up Google maps street view and I recognized the steep hill we walked down from the car park. After another half hour of hot, steep-hill, charming ancient city walking I found the car. Empty of course with no note. I tried to ask the several sleepy people who seemed to work at the coffee shop if they saw a handsome Swede recently, but they didn't understand my questions. So I bought a cold beer and waited. The aforementioned handsome Swede showed up, none too happy I might add. OK fast forward through that few minutes and we were on our way after an accidental turn onto a walking street. Now that's an uncomfortable situation - trying to drive down a very busy touristy walking street in charming Italian walled city, but it was a great story. That is until the ticket came in the mail months later. Apparently Big Italian Brother was watching and set a large bill to Svend's father who didn't think it was such a good story! HA!

The Magic of Medjugore

Smack dab in the middle of nowhere is wonderful place called Medjagore. My knowledge before I went there was - the Blessed Mother appeared to some children and that many people who come here find a spiritual renewal and some have miraculous experiences.

Now when you drive into Bosnia Herzegovina from Croatian, you actually leave the European Union and some of our pampered modern day wonders like our GPS disappear. Of course we're old enough to remember the Fred Flintstone days of pre-Google maps, Siri and the rest of the modern travel helpers but it did prove to be a bit troublesome. I'm sure that there is a GPS network that works in B/H, but we were not on that one.

The border crossing went fine. They did take our passports and did something with them, but it was not more than a 10 minute delay. We did need some sort of car insurance rider which, lo and behold one could purchase at a trailer behind the border crossing building for 20 Euros. No big deal - the  hidden cost of traveling.

All was fine until we got into the town and our hotel was hiding somewhere in the maze of new buildings and rosary bead shops. An honest description of Medjugorie is that it seems rather tacky at first and has that unplanned boomtown look that I'm sure many of these types of places have.  The town is not huge and we hoped we could just drive around and the hotel would pop out at us. And luckily one of the first signs we saw was the Pension Ivona, our hotel - or so we thought. It looked pretty nice and we thought this will do nicely for the $50 per night we booked. But after the person we first spoke to fetched the sleeping person who spoke English, it turned out the Pension Ivona was not to be confused with the Hotel Ivona - and he didn't really know where that hotel was. (yea right!) Eventually a little wandering, asking actual people for directions - and getting the most helpful advice from shop keepers and even other hotel people, we found Hotel Ivona, somewhat out of the main town, but very new, clean, friendly with a gorgeous pool in the back, an even better $50 choice.
Being us, the seat-of-your pants travelers, we just said, "oh let's walk up Apparition Hill, the site of the apparitions in the 1980's. The guy at the hotel said it's an easy 20 minute walk. Really??? I said to him later, did you actually look at us, you 30 year old skinny guy? ((I didn't really say the 30 year old skinny guy part) It was NOT easy, it was very difficult, we really should have paid attention to all those walking sticks being sold along with the rosary beads and we definitely should not have listened to the hearty young Italian family who said follow the red stone path, it's more direct. Direct means steeper in Italian, I guess. Of course it was about 95 degrees out too. Picture a rocky river bed, uneven and steep and then picture me and Svend - not pretty. And to add insult to injury, barefooted pilgrims passed us. Others, old and young, some saying the rosary, also passed us. But guess what - we made it and it was wonderful. Reverent, peaceful, moving and special in a way that's hard to articulate. There's a statue of the Blessed Mother and not far away a cross. People were praying, some in tears. It was a truly moving and gratifying experience.
There was a quite a felling of accomplishment when we finally reached the world of sidewalks after our decent from Apparition Hill.

That evening we drove down to Saint James Church and participated in a Mass that was in Croatian, but that fact didn't matter. It was wonderful being among several thousand faithful individuals.  There is a powerful felling of peace and belonging in Medjugore. 
After a delightful swim in the beautiful pool behind Hotel Ivona and a $4 over the top breakfast the next morning, we went back to the church for one more Mass (in English this time) and the priest spoke eloquently about the miracle of Medjugore in his once skeptical opinion. It's that despite all odds, in the middle of nowhere the faithful come and they won't be stopped. I hope to go back someday!

Croatia

Slow down, you move too fast!

We never considered Hrvatska as a vacation spot, (a dollar for anyone who has ever heard of Hrvatska). After weeks of one fabulous Middle European spot after another we decided to crash for a week near water. Hello Croatia (I mean Hrvatska)- with over 1000 islands on the Adriatic Sea. We only needed one island and randomly picked Uglian from booking.com. What a wonderful random choice it was! 

I mean really, we can all rail against that new fangled Internet thingy and complain about kids living on it and social media ruining life as we know it, but come on - push on a little app, pay for an unseen pension-hotel, have directions sent to your phone, have your phone tell you where to go, pay tolls with your credit card, check the ferry schedule online from a city you never heard of before, find a tiny town at the top of an island on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia and you're going to complain? Not I.

We spent an entire week there, swimming about 4 or 5 times per day in the glorious sea. I love all oceans, what New Englander doesn't? But right now the Adriatic is at the top of my list. I'll probably change my mind when I get back to the Atlantic.

The coast was rocky in Uglian, but it was OK because there was a ladder right outside the hotel that went strait down to where you could easily just start swimming.

Stairway to paradise

I'm not complaining about this, but there was no air conditioning. The air was breezy and so fresh that I was fine without it. Not everyone in the room was as fine with it as I was however. I'm not mentioning names. 

Room with a view

But we really got into the routine of having breakfast, walking, swimming or sitting in the sun until one-ish, maybe having a Croatian beer and then doing the absolutely brilliant activity of taking a siesta. What mastermind invented that practice? Get up, have coffee, swim walk around sit on the pier and watch the boats come and go. Decide on one of the four places to eat dinner, walk around some more. Really tough living.


The host and hostess at Hotel Styvon were very sweet. Again no English, but you can't really hold that against them. Fortunately Svend and his German were handy. I didn't mind making him do all the ordering and paying. 

Most of the fellow hotel guest were Italian and to be honest their English is just so-so as well. I do think though, that of all the ways to say "good morning" - "bongiorno" is possibly the prettiest.

After a few days of rarely getting into the car, we noticed some "rocks" in the parking area. Turns out to be the ruins of an olive press from the 100 years before Christ. (That's BC or BCE to the scientific crowd) We really need to pay more attention to our surroundings!

We did take the occasional forays to the other towns on the island which were charming and had things like grocery stores and beaches. But we were happy to return to our hamlet of Muline at the top of the island. On one of our outings, we did witness a fire on the mainland being put out using planes spraying water. That was something new. It was very dry there and hadn't rained much at that point.

Croatia was also a surprise because of it's ultra modern roads with beautiful tunnels going though the mountains. Svend had been there as a kid in the 60's and at that point the all the roads were one lane each way going through the cities and towns and up and down the mountains.  This time we went through many very modern tunnels up to up to seven kilometers long. This is another example of the EU benefiting the more developing part of Europe. Thank you EU.

Note to travelers -if you are driving through mountainous Europe and you see a sign that gives you a choice of "scenic" or "direct" route, know that "scenic" is a buzzword for "scary hairpin turns going up and (worse) down a mountain. Now this is not to say you should not take the "scenic" choice, because yes, that's right it is BEAUTIFUL!

 I try to rely on my eyelids to protect me from scary driving situations (no, not when I'm actually driving) When Svend is driving I sometimes use my eyelids on normal roads But in the Dinaric Alps my eyelids betrayed me many times. It's just too gorgeous not to look. SO in the end - when it was over, I was very glad we took the "scenic" route

So a week of R&R from our general life of R&R.

(Does that sentence make sense to anyone besides me?

Next stop - the amazing Medjagore in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Slovakia and Hungary

Where is the Post box?

On Sunday morning in Zakopane, we were looking for a post box to mail some post cards before leaving lovely Poland. Suddenly after going through what we thought was roadwork but was in fact a border crossing, we were in Slovakia. A new country for both of us and one that doesn't recognize Polish stamps, or use  Slotsky as their currency. Obviously not the hugest deal, just a small surprise.
We drove a couple of hours through the lovely countryside and distant mountains of northern Slovakia.

Is Dracula home?

When I was a kid, there wasn't even a Slovakia, just Czechoslovakia. But of course the great break down of the Soviet block changed eastern Europe quite a bit. That was in 1989 and the less then 30 years has seen a huge difference in the lives of people from those countries. The traveler  benefits from the change by way of better roads and travel opportunities in general.
There is still a look of the former Soviet style apartment buildings which can only be described as boring. But as someone said, before getting one of these warren like apartments in the 50s or 60s, many people lived in a place with no running water and an outhouse in the yard. So to them it was a great step up.

We spent an overnight in Zvolen, a small city in the center of Slovakia. The most memorable factoid about that stay was that for dinner I ate rooster! (tastes like chicken😏¨only better) 
There was a wedding in the square that evening, where the quests and wedding party walked to the church in a happy procession. The statuary in the square commemorated some unknown (to us), soviet era dignitaries. It was a pleasant looking area with a wide open boulevard\walking street, a castle at one end and a lovely church at the other. Not very crowded on a Saturday night and a nice outdoor cafe that only served (gasp) juice! We survived, the juice was actually good. Otherwise at was a nice stop on the way to Budapest.

Should have stood in bed

We made a booking at a farm pension outside of Budapest that was owned by an English expat and his Hungarian wife both of whom were lovely. Of course we gravitated to the Englishman who was able to give us directions to the commuter train and a good restaurant nearby. There were goats, sheep, fowl, dogs, Dutch people, Poles and us in residence for those few days. The room was great, breakfast -just OK (don't forget we are used to Danish cheese and rugbröd, an amazing rye bread, which can't be beat.)

Classic beauty (haha)

Now Budapest; you've seen pictures, or been there. It's just such an elegant and beautiful city, both Buda and Pest on either side of the Danube . That amazing building that you see in the Viking River Cruise ads is not that old. Wouldn't you think it's some 17th century castle of a decadent royal family? But it's the parliament building built in the late 1800 early 1900s. That surprised me. 
Another surprising fact is the original settlement with is now Budapest was settled by a Celtic tribe some where in the first century BC. I bet you even Alex Trebeck doesn't know that!

From our farm B and B, we took the commuter rail into the city, very efficient, it took about a half hour and we were in the heart of the city. We did a lot of walking combined with one of those hop on/hop off bus tours and were immersed in that beautiful place. Lunch along the Danube, viewing the city from a point above the river, taking a  sight seeing boat ride along the Danube at sunset - tourist heaven.

The only glitch to the day was when we went back to the efficient train station to take the efficient commuter train back to our bucolic farm - there was no train. Ha ha suddenly we're in the middle of a travelers nightmare. I have stated before that it's almost embarrassingly easy for English speakers traveling through Europe these days. Most Europeans are fluent in English, but this does not apply to mature railway workers at 10 pm in Budapest. Who knew?  Svend and his four languages to the rescue. There was a woman who spoke German and Hungarian nearby and we corralled her to get the skinny from the railway worker. It turns out the train was not coming, but there will be a bus. OK, great - when will the bus come? They weren't sure but one thing they did know was it wasn't going to be there. We had to find the subway station, take a train a few stops, walk a few blocks to a deserted looking street and wait half an hour. And voila - it came, we went and eventually found our way to the car. The bus driver was as confused as we at first, but with a little help from the collective passengers we came to the dark lonely parking lot. Finally farm, sweet farm. Just a few hours out of our lives. We did a lot of relying on the kindness of strangers, and kind they were.

Where is our train?

We had a great couple of days in Hungary, but the pace of our great European trip was getting out of hand. One beautiful medieval city after another! cathedrals, castles, forts. It was time for a break.

Krakow

Small Svend 
in a big square

POLAND

I know I sang the well deserved praises of Berlin, and I stand by them, but OMG - Krakow!! What a fantastic city. You know what strikes me about Krakow, aside for the most fantastic old town square? The street musicians All this first class music playing for free on the streets, in the squares, in front of churches - oboes, violas and violins, oh my..

Casimir the Great - quick, what do you know about him? Just what I suspected, not much right? Well there must have been not much happening around the 14th century and Casimir must have been bored, because it seemed that every incredible church and castle that you see in Krakow, Casimir had a hand in having built. He also doubled the size of Poland, founded the University of Krakow, instituted a legal system, encouraged protection of the Jews to name a few accomplishments, Obviously there was no TV in the 1300's so people had to do something! I'm not sure how all this business was financed. More research is needed. My guess would be the peasants somehow got the bill.

Just another
 gorgeous church

There is a fantastic church in the old square dedicated to the Blessed Mother, Saint Mary's Church.which has the most wonderful stain glass and huge arches, it's quite beautiful. 
Every hour a bugler comes out of one of the tower windows high above the square and plays a melody that reminds you of "Taps" During the fourth refrain, it is cut off in mid melody, and that marks the hour. One is never quite sure from which little door the bugler will appear. Naturally many people in the square  (OK, mostly tourists) look up at the church tower as the hour approaches. What's sweet and charming as that people wave at the bugler, you just want to do it. They also play this melody, known as the Hejnal Mariacki on the Polish radio at noon and I believe it is dear to every Pole.. The legend as to why the fourth refrain doesn't finish is that when the Tartars were invading the city in the 1100's the sentry who was sounding the alarm was shot in the neck. This legend may or may not be true, but it's sounds good.

Helena Rubinstien's birthplace
  now a lovely restaurant

We were very impressed by Poland in general. Before Krakow, we over-nigthed in a town called Wroclaw. (although the Germans call it Breslau, don't ask me why. 
Most likely another unknown location to most of us, but yet again a wonderful old town and city square. This was one of our, -" let's see how far we get and then look for a room on airbnb" days. For a whopping $18 for the night, we slept in the apartment of a 20 something in a typical European apartment neighborhood - a series of 3-4 story apartment buildings. If you have traveled in Europe you know about the great joke they like play on Americans by saying 3rd floor when they actually mean 4th floor. They play that joke in NYC sometimes too. Anyway we trudged up to the fourth floor, Tomas was great and gave us good advice about the city. We had a lovely night walking easily to the old city, eating borscht and golumkies and moving along to Krakow the next day. Best $18 ever!

Poland has a rich history which my many years of education seems to have missed. John Sobieski ... know who he is? Apparently he was responsible for defeating the Turks in 1683 and rescuing Europe from the Ottoman Empire (finally!)
The Ottoman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, The Tartars, The Great Schism - there are subjects that I, for one certainly need to brush up upon.

Seems like an easy hike

Another stop in Poland for a couple of days was Zakopane, a part of southern Poland that is very mountainous and beautiful. The mountain range is the western part of the Carpathians, which I first leaned about at the Adams Theater in Dorchester on a Saturday afternoon long, long ago. Bela Lugosi was the teacher. I was very happy to realize I finally reached this scary mountain range albeit not in the real vampire infested part of the eastern Carpathinans in Romania.. Although who really knows the vampire migration habits?  we never expected black bears in New Jersey.

I was beginning to regret the stupid decision not to bring my beloved New Balance hiking shoes because they were so bulky, it was summer and bla, bla bla...By this time it was becoming apparent that better footwear was needed. So we found a shoe store and  bought a pair of sneakers. And the next day went on a eight kilometer trek up a beautiful mountain pass, at the end of which was a dear little mountain chapel that Pope John the Second, that favorite pope of all  Polish people, visited a few times. All I can say is "SHOW OFF!" I'll bet someone packed his beloved walking shoes and he didn't fall on the grass in exhaustion on the high meadow when he finally got there. And there was probably a kiosk that sold Cokes when he was there! And it probably wasn't hot August either I guess you get the hint - it was really hard. And the new shoes? You don't  have to be a genius to figure that one out. The two hours up was bad enough, but the two hours down was torture. I believe that beer at the lovely outdoor cafe at sunset may have been one of the high points of my life. And I've had some pretty good high points.

The far away chapel

Close to death

Enough about me (for now) I guess I could mention Svend on occasion. All I can say is if you are going to travel through Europe, you really should bring him along. It's not just the four languages (the German really came in handy on this trip) In addition to translator he is a chauffeur, very good at figuring out public transportation, has the booking.com and airbnb apps right on his phone, is interested in new experiences, can strike up a conversation with just about anyone and is a good listener - except when he's not listening at all (anyone who has a partner knows what I'm talking about there - maybe even Svend)

Nasdrovia!

Auschwitz

Auschwitz deserves a special blog page. It doesn’t seem appropriate to say “and then we went to Auswitch…”

Everyone has at least a smattering of knowledge of the Holocaust and the incinerators and the millions of innocent people who died. But to walk the grounds where so much of this has happened is a sobering and surreal  experience. Despite reading a great deal of facts and stories and looking at pictures of the faces of regular people who are simply discarded for no imaginable justification I still can’t grasp that this happened in modern day Europe.

The deniers need to be forced to visit Auschwitz and the even sadder sister camp called Birkenau which has hundreds of huts where people slept 10 to a bunk each hut holding 400 people. Auschwitz with it’s shady cobblestone streets look pleasant in comparison. Then you realize you’re in the building where Joseph Mengele carried out his experiments, many on children. 

It’s really nauseating. The sad reality is we’re not talking about one man here. 

To be honest the tourist operation was a bit chaotic. We stood in line for over an hour and a half and then they said there would be no more English tours. And the buses to go over to
 were jammed, but really, you can’t complain at Auschwitz you just can’t.

Previous unknown facts- Poland was the country that lost most people to the Holocaust, an estimated two million. That's not including the millions more who died in the war itself.

The story of the Hungarian Jewish community is particularly heart wrenching. After almost escaping the "final solution" near the end of the war, Hitler occupied Hungary and Adolph Eichmann efficiently arranged for the export to over 440,000 Jews in over-crowded railroad cars. After a miserable trip of 3 to 5 days during the summer of 1944, ninety per cent of those sent to Auschwitz went directly from the train to the crematoriums.

We heard many of the holocaust stories from Berlin, to Krakow to Budapest. Of course there were many more than Jews exterminated, the Romani (formally known as Gypsies) resistance fighters, homosexuals, handicapped people....

And what about the millions of Poles, Hungarians and other East Europeans who disappeared to the Soviet work camps after the war? Where are their stories? Too much!!!

I don't remotely claim to know any answers to the big question of "Why?" I do think people should visit if they have a chance.

Berlin